


Mutual Life

by Tam_Cranver



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 19:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tam_Cranver/pseuds/Tam_Cranver
Summary: Meeting an enemy twice doesn't make them a friend, but at least Alexandra isn't trying to kill Stick this time.





	Mutual Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DJClawson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/gifts).



> The title comes from the name of a situation that arises in Go; I don't actually play, so hopefully I haven't messed up the game in the story too much. 
> 
> There's one scene of explicit violence in the beginning. If there's anything else that you feel needs a content note, please feel free to let me know.

The Lakers were winning. The guard wasn’t a fan, and he cursed under his breath, tapping the handheld radio against his thigh like he was thinking about tossing it across the room. He didn’t hear the man step up behind him, and he didn’t feel the knife against his throat until it had been slit and the blood was gushing out, warm and salty, against the floor.

Stick was good at his job. But Jesus, the amount of rent this building must be costing the tenants, he’d have thought they could spring for some halfway decent security.

Vollum 1B anthrax. Master Stone had said the Hand had stolen some from an Army lab in Maryland. The Chaste didn’t know what they were planning—extort money from the government, fake a terrorist attack, cover up an assassination by killing a bunch of other people, yada yada yada, the point was that they were storing it in some ritzy office building that happened to have good lab facilities and a veneer of respectability. And shit security, which was where Stick came in.

Anthrax didn’t smell like anything, and most of the building staff didn’t know diddly about what the fancy lady on the 51st floor was carrying in and out of the building, but formaldehyde _did_ smell, and unless the Hand was running a morgue up there, Stick figured they’d wanted an insurance policy in case some dumbass released the anthrax before whatever plan they were carrying out was ready.

Moving past the dead Warriors fan, Stick ran the keycard he’d lifted off the man’s belt through the reader. He paused as he opened the door. It was two in the morning, but someone was still at work—he could hear orchestra music coming from an office nearby, though whoever’s office it was wasn’t there. Bathroom, maybe. The only heartbeat in this hallway was his, which was really the only part that mattered. Stick closed the door behind him and listened to the air floating around the lab.

He’d wanted to take the anthrax back with him—who knew when it might come in handy—but Master Stone had said the risk of the spores getting out was too great. He had to destroy them. Just as well, really, since carrying around the case would have been a pain in the ass. Conveniently, the Hand kept everything needed to destroy anthrax on site. Smelly work, but Stick had sure done worse.

The job was only halfway done, however, when a woman’s voice said, “Now what do we have here?” from behind him.

Stick, despite himself, flinched. The hell? He’d been focused on the anthrax, but he always kept one ear out just in case. There had been no heartbeat, no footsteps. He slowly set the formaldehyde down and tensed, preparing to catch whoever it was in a rapid spin attack, but before he could, he was…

He was tied to a chair? He must have lost consciousness—his head was throbbing, probably blunt force trauma, but he didn’t have any recollection of what had happened. The woman from before was pacing in front of him. From the way her bones moved, her smell, the sound her hair made when it moved, she was old, but not elderly. She moved smoothly and without difficulty, but there was a weird slowness to her heartbeat and breath, even when she was moving around. Behind her, lurking around the edges of the room, were six more heartbeats. Shit. How the _fuck_ had he missed them?

“You’re awake.”

It wasn’t like he could pretend he _hadn’t_ been stealing shit from her building. Even the biggest bleeding heart in the world wouldn’t believe a poor blind guy had just wondered in to a top secret lab past a mysteriously murdered security guard. So Stick shrugged. “Yeah. You got me.” He’d had a pretty good run. He wished he could have finished destroying the anthrax before he died, though. That was a blow to his pride.

“Did Gao send you?”

Stick blinked, surprised again. “Who?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me.” She stepped in closer, the silk of her dress making a soft hissing sound as she moved. Fancy dress. This was obviously the lady in charge. “I knew she was planning something. I suspected she’d steal the anthrax rather than destroy it, but then, I’m not arrogant enough to believe I know the details of all her schemes.”

“So Gao’s an enemy of yours, then,” said Stick. He made himself sound bored, but if this woman was talking at him rather than killing him, he had a good shot of getting out of this. She’d bound him to the chair with handcuffs. The chair itself was flimsy, and she hadn’t tied his legs. It was only a matter of time before he freed himself. He just had to stall. “I’d probably get along with her, but I don’t work for her.”

“Really?” The woman’s tone made it a flat statement rather than a question. “Because the people who work for Gao tend to have certain things in common, several traits of which you share. I’m sure she told you it was to help you see higher and more spiritual goods, but the real reason she blinds her followers is to give herself power over them. You don’t have to protect her.”

“Lady, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said Stick, a little pissed now. “I was born blind, and if you think that gives anyone power over me, you’re stupider than that dumbass I killed earlier.”

That gave her pause. “Well. You certainly don’t _talk_ like a disciple of Gao’s.” Her hair shifted—she was probably looking at him more closely. “Who are you?”

“Why should I tell you? You’re just going to kill me anyway.” She wasn’t _quite_ close enough for him to kick or headbutt. Shame.

“You knew about the anthrax,” she said, as if to herself. “You were able to get past my security. Not to steal the anthrax or contact the police, but to destroy it.” She tapped on her chin. “No, don’t tell me. Is the _Chaste_ in town again?”

“The Chaste? Sounds like a bad band name,” said Stick. If he could get out of this without giving away any compromising information, maybe this mission wouldn’t be a total failure.

She laughed, and not a fake laugh, either. She sounded goddamned delighted. “You _are_ with the Chaste. My God, have they really fallen on such hard times that they send _one man_ at me?”

“One-man mission,” Stick pointed out, “you always know who to trust.” It wasn’t as if this had been a full-frontal attack, anyway.

“Trust,” she said, still sounding amused. “You _trust_ the people who sent you into the lion’s den. They had to know that you wouldn’t get past me. Especially since they didn’t train you well enough to detect people who move a little more…quietly.” She gestured toward the men standing against the walls, and didn’t tell him what she was gesturing at. Either she was the kind of asshole who just forgot what ‘blind’ meant, or she knew enough not to underestimate him. Now there was a thought.

“Eh,” he said. “It was worth a try.”

She breathed out a dry laugh. “You’re not cowardly. I’ll give you that.” Taking a step back, she let out a long, slow breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was different—intimate, persuasive. “My name is Alexandra. Did they tell you that, at least?”

They told him what he needed to know. Though he might have liked a heads-up about the Hand’s apparent ability to move silently when they wanted to. “Wasn’t exactly planning on sitting around making small talk.”

“Of course not.” She turned her head to look at her men. “You know the smartest thing for me to do would be to have you killed, don’t you? I could simply have someone slit your throat. Poetic justice, for Mr. Hamilton. That’s the name of the security guard you killed, by the way.”

Stick rolled his eyes. If she was _talking_ about killing him rather than actually doing it, she wanted something. Setting his teeth, he dislocated his left thumb and pulled the hand through the handcuff, hiding the wince with a scowl. “You want me to feel guilty, think again. You’re the ones stockpiling biological weapons, don’t talk to me about killing.”

“That’s not what we’d _like_ to do,” said the woman. “Our organization is about life—protecting it, preserving it. In practice, sometimes that proves a bit complicated.”

“Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.” Both hands were free now.

“How prosaic.” She drew in close again—hopefully, not close enough to see that Stick was just biding his time. “We don’t have to be enemies. You’re clearly very skilled, and certainly the Chaste and the Hand have many goals in common. Would it really be the worst thing in the world to share our information?”

Stick didn’t have to fake his incredulity. “You’re talking about being a spy.”

“Hardly. I’m simply suggesting that you consider sitting down with us and talking things out. I’m certain we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

One of the men in the corner sneezed, of all things, and the woman—Alexandra—was momentarily distracted. A moment was all Stick needed. He jumped up, wrapped an arm against her neck, and pulled her against him. She’d taken his knife, but he didn’t need a knife to snap her neck, and if she was really the one in charge, she’d make a pretty good ticket out of this popsicle stand.

Her men tensed, but she stayed perfectly calm, sighing like she was disappointed. “It always comes to this,” she said. “Violence.”

“Yeah, well, life’s a bitch,” said Stick. “Tell your men to let me go, and I won’t kill you right here and now.”

“You’re sure they won’t kill _you_ right here and now?”

Stick might not have noticed them before, but he had their measure now. Not a one of them was going to move if it meant putting her life in danger. “I’ll take my chances.”

“A pity,” said Alexandra. “I think you would have brought life to the Hand. A new perspective, certainly.” She made a graceful gesture with one hand at her men. “Let him leave,” she said.

They edged their way out of the room and toward the elevator. When they reached it, he tightened his grip around her neck momentarily before loosening his hold again. “Push the buttons.” He didn’t have the hands to spare, and from what he could tell, the elevator didn’t have much in the way of labels for the blind. Figured.

“Of course,” she said, gracious but not syrupy.

They rode down in silence. Stick was busy thinking about how he was going to spin this for Master Stone; he didn’t know what Alexandra was doing, but whatever it was, her pulse and breathing remained steady. She didn’t faze easy.

When they reached the bottom, Stick made his way toward the sliding door, still with Alexandra in tow. He wasn’t about to let go of her until he had a clear exit from the area, and he wasn’t about to be caught off-guard again. He stood there for a moment, listening, smelling, ignoring the feeling of his shirt and jeans enough to feel the air currents and waves of warmth and cool in the stale atmosphere of the sealed-off high rise. They were alone.

“Well,” he said, “I’d say I’d see you around, but, you know, I won’t.”

“Don’t forget my offer,” she said. “I believe you have a lot to offer the Hand. And the Hand has a lot to offer you.”

“Like what?” It was still early, but there was movement in the subway station a block away, probably enough people to provide cover. Big city life.

“Money, if you want it, though you strike me as a man used to self-denial. Respect, perhaps. If you prove yourself worthy, you may attain the Hand’s greatest treasure.”

“And what’s that?” It probably wasn’t anything the Chaste didn’t already know, but Stick didn’t like being kept in the metaphorical dark, and if he wasn’t going to get information from his friends, he might as well try to get some from his enemies.

He could hear her skin wrinkling as she smiled. “Life,” she said. “Eternal life.”

“Bull _shit_ ,” said Stick automatically.

“It’s not,” Alexandra said. “As I said, the Hand reveres life. Ultimately, it’s the only thing worth valuing.”

That, Stick could agree with. And the best way to preserve his own was to get the hell out of Dodge. He let Alexandra go and made a break for the doors.

It was a few years later that he met Gao. He wasn’t on a mission at the time—or, rather, he was, but it was a recruitment mission, and he wasn’t there to do the recruitment, he was there to gather information for Master Root, who was doing the recruitment. It involved a lot of playing a bum and hanging around across the street from the apartment building where the kid lived. Wasn’t very interesting, but on the upside, his Mandarin was getting a lot better.

In his downtime, he played Go in the park with the old guys. Sometimes he could scam a little money out of them by remembering every move anyone made. Sometimes he got into fights with people who accused him of cheating. And sometimes, little old ladies approached him and challenged him to a game.

They didn’t usually say, “You’re here with the Chaste, aren’t you?” That one was pretty rare.

Stick was disciplined enough to keep his heart and breath under control. “Just a traveler, ma’am,” he said as he placed a piece. One of hers. In an illegal spot. Sometimes, playing dumb was enough to disarm an opponent.

She laughed. “I thought you’d say that. Alexandra didn’t say much about you, but you’re exactly what I had imagined.”

If she was close enough to talk about Alexandra like an old friend, no doubt she was a bigwig in the Hand’s hierarchy. Stick took a stab. “You must be Madame Gao,” he said. “Heard you were a Finger. Seems like a stupid thing to let people call you, but I guess that’s your business.”

“Coming from someone who goes by Stick, you’ll forgive me if I find that an…unimpressive insult.” She placed a piece. One of his.

She must have had ears on the ground to have found out his name. Maybe ears in the park, or close to Master Root. Stick only barely kept himself from cursing. Underestimating your opponent was a rookie move—one Stick took advantage of too much to fall victim of it to himself. Stupid.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Gao clicked her tongue against her teeth chidingly. “A foolish question. I’ve already told you, I would like to play a game with you.”

What kind of game, was the question. Stick couldn’t hear anyone around, listening in on them, but that didn’t mean anything with the Hand, especially in a city the size of Guangzhou. So far, Gao didn’t seem hostile, but that could change at any time. Master Root was still with the new recruit, and though the Chaste had a headquarters in the city, it was far enough away that they wouldn’t be any good for backup, even if Stick had some way of getting word to them.

So Stick did the only thing he could under the circumstances: he played Go.

“I hear,” Gao said conversationally as she captured one of his chains of pieces, “that you managed to destroy a good part of Alexandra’s anthrax.”

Stick shrugged and focused on the scent of the pieces, which was the easiest way of telling them apart. “Didn’t get to finish the job.”

“You did well enough,” said Gao, like she was trying to make him feel better about it. “After your visit, Alexandra called me. She had decided to change her plan for the anthrax, which I had been unable to persuade her to do. I must thank you.”

If Alexandra had thought Madame Gao had sent Stick to steal the anthrax, she must have had her own plan for it. Stick wondered what it was. He didn’t know jack shit about the internal politics of the Hand, but he imagined that, if they were regularly stealing biological weapons from each other, there was a fair amount of backstabbing going on. “I didn’t do it for you,” he said. He didn’t have a lot of good places to set a stone on this board.

She made an affirmative noise. “Of course not. But if you _are_ looking to do something that will benefit both me and the Chaste, it may interest you to know that Alexandra will be attempting to assassinate a prominent American businessman taking an important meeting in London tomorrow.”

Vague, but a big enough target to make it worth his while. He set down the stone he’d been contemplating. “Master Stone said this was your thing.”

“My thing?” asked Gao.

“Yeah. Your schtick. You give us just enough information to lead us on a wild goose chase and you take out a Chaste safehouse or something. Or we take out an enemy for you and solidify your power base, or we owe you a favor, or something. Broken promises, deals that aren’t really deals. Your schtick.”

“So cynical!” Gao exclaimed. “Master Stone was always so suspicious. She’s a very simple person, you know. I don’t say it as a bad thing—she’s certainly clever in her own ways—but the idea that one can work together to achieve a goal with people with whom one does not share _all_ goals has never been an easy one for her to grasp. You, though?” He could see what she was doing now. She was invading one of the groups of pieces he’d established on the board early on. “You, I think, are more subtle in your approach.”

Many words had been used to describe Stick, but ‘subtle’ wasn’t one of them. “Oh?”

 “You, I think, might understand that a deal in which both parties benefit is not a ‘broken promise’ at all. Some would call that the best kind of deal.” She tapped a finger against the board. “Mr. Keene, the businessman in question, is very influential with several key figures in the British government, those who deal with the importing and exporting of antiquities from Britain’s former colonies. Is smuggling really smuggling if you have approval from the proper people?”

“He sounds like a dick.”

Gao laughed. “Yes. Perhaps he is. But his agents in other countries are very industrious. They have discovered things that would be of great use to the Hand, and will continue to be. Alexandra fears that his efforts will take control of these…resources…from our own people. A legitimate fear. But killing is not the only way of dealing with such problems, nor is it the best way, I think.” She made another move.

“You prefer to talk with him,” said Stick skeptically.

She shrugged. “The details would be up to you. The Chaste prevents his killing, and in so doing, allows a circle of transactions to continue, perhaps to be tracked by its own operatives or by governmental agencies. Valuable information will be gathered, and you can do with it as you wish.”

“How generous.” Not that information wouldn’t be a good thing. Particularly about the military capacities of the main branch of the Hand. It could be an effort to ambush the Chaste, but there was nothing saying that they couldn’t investigate the thing and bail if things turned sour.

“Of course I would get something, too. I would gain time to persuade Alexandra to handle the situation with a bit more tact. She is, of course, a very dear friend, but she’s become very settled in her ways. Impatient, perhaps. The burdens of leadership weigh heavily on her.”

The more Stick was in Gao’s presence, the more he felt there was something odd about her. Like Alexandra, there was something too regular about her pulse and breath. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on it. It was like…like there was some other energy source keeping everything running smooth as a machine. There was really something uncanny about it. Stick had encountered some odd things since joining the Chaste, but this had to take the prize for sheer unease. He cleared his throat. “Huh,” he said. “And I guess, like a dear friend, you’d like to relieve her of those burdens.”

 “Oh, I don’t know,” Gao demurred. “Perhaps. When the time has come. If the task becomes too discouraging to her, others might take her place, others with whom the Chaste could deal more comfortably. With whom, perhaps, compromises might be made.”

“Like you.”

“Perhaps, if my brothers agreed.” He could hear the smile in her voice.

It was a tempting idea—play Gao against Alexandra, sow discord in the Hand ranks, weaken them enough to topple the Hand. High risk, but high reward.

Then again, chances were good he was being played right now. The Chaste didn’t have the numbers to waste on a gamble, and Stick wasn’t any too interested in getting in the middle of a millennia-long personal feud. He left that shit to civilians. Making up his mind to talk with some of the more reliable people at the safehouse, he pushed himself back from the table and stood. “I don’t deal with the Hand. And this game is done.”

“Hmm.” She examined the board. “You’re right. Neither of us can make a good move. Not with the board as it currently stands.” She stood up, taking her cane with her and planting it firmly on the ground to lean on it. “Please convey my greetings to Master Stone, and do tell her what I said about Mr. Keene.”

He was going to tell Master Stone a hell of a lot more than that. “Sure,” he said.

“Then I will take my leave. It was good to meet you, Stick.”

He waited for her to leave, but she just stood there. After a moment, he said, “If you’re waiting for me to say it was nice to meet you, too, you’re gonna be waiting a while.”

“I wasn’t,” she said. “But I will say that you would do very well in the Hand. So many of us, Hand and Chaste, are tied to the past, mourning our losses. But you, I think, have never had anything to lose. And there is a strength in that.”

Stick had to agree there, but then, Master Stone had told him Gao was a flatterer. “Gonna have a lot more losses if you live forever,” he pointed out.

“And more victories,” said Gao. “A man who knows to rely on himself can go far, if he is given the independence to choose his own way. There is a reason that the Hand has long since split into factions, but when it counts, we have always been able to come together to meet any threat.”

_Including the Chaste_ , she didn’t say. Stick heard it, anyway. He also heard the _Think about it_.

He did. But he’d already changed course once in his life. Maybe he was practical, and ruthless, and all the rest of it, but the Chaste had given him a purpose. A way to take all the stupid shit he’d done as a kid and do something halfway decent with it. He wasn’t about to throw them over for some half-baked implications and promises of immortality. Who the hell wanted to live forever, anyway?

He didn’t meet any of the leaders of the Hand again for a long time. He spent years running missions before the Chaste thought he was a good fit for recruitment and training. A weird thought, Stick mentoring someone, but he’d done pretty well in the Chaste. He didn’t think he’d mind teaching some kid the ropes.

It was spring, and he was in New York again, between pupils, when he ran into Alexandra again. He was picking pockets in Manhattan, just to keep his skills sharp, when someone said, “Stick.”

He carefully put his mark’s wallet back in her purse.

“That is your name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” They were surrounded by people—probably some of them wondering what the hell a woman in a fur coat was doing talking to some blind bum. Most of them probably didn’t give a shit. People generally didn’t notice or care about things that didn’t concern them, and some things that did.

“I’ve been following your career with interest. You’re rising in the ranks of the Chaste quite rapidly, aren’t you?”

Mostly because their numbers were dwindling. Master Stone was too damn picky about recruits. It was a goddamned miracle she’d ever accepted Stick. He shrugged. “I do all right for myself. Guess Gao hasn’t taken you out, yet.”

“Not for lack of trying.” She didn’t seem a day older—where Stick was starting to feel arthritis in his joints, her movements were still as smooth as the day they’d met, and her heart still had that uncanny evenness. But there was something a little tired in her voice. A little hollow.

“Yeah, well. You could always retire,” Stick offered.

“And you could always join the Hand and enjoy the benefits of our resources, instead of roaming the world like a cowboy who couldn’t hack it in a town, picking pockets and recruiting children to a dying cause.”

Stick knew he wasn’t hiding his anger well enough, but it didn’t stop him from saying, “Don’t you talk to me about recruiting children.” From what he heard, one of the other Fingers was turning out a whole _school_ of Hand flunkies. They were producing twenty or thirty students to every one the Chaste trained. It was like a goddamned factory.

“In the end, I suppose, we’re all seeking the same thing,” said Alexandra. He couldn’t tell whether she was trying to sound apologetic or not. If she was, she wasn’t doing very well at it.

“What’s that?” he asked.

 “New life.”

Literally, in her case. He wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if he killed her right there on the street. What exactly it took for her, or for the rest of them, to come back to life. “Not exactly the same thing,” he said. She still had her entourage of guards, but they didn’t stop him from turning and walking away.

“Stick!”

He didn’t bother to stop or turn around, but he did yell back, “Yeah?”

“I’m glad I ran into you. It’s not often enough that I see an old friend.”

_Friend, huh?_ Since when did meeting an enemy twice make them a friend? At least, he thought, she wasn’t trying to kill him this time.

It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough for him to wave at her before he let the crowd of busy pedestrians sweep him away.

He had a lot to do. Alexandra wasn’t the only Hand higher-up in town. The word on the street was that the Hand was desperately looking for a weapon—the Black Sky. If Alexandra and the rest were around, it was probably either nearby or would be soon, and if Gao was still trying to take out Alexandra, chances were good that something big was brewing on the horizon.

Stick was going to be ready for it.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
